1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telephones and more particularly to a hand adaptive telephone comprising a glove member, adapted to be worn on a person's hand, and a user interface mechanism carried by the glove member and adapted to be coupled to telephone circuitry.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A telephone is an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance. The transmission of sounds between widely removed locations may or may not use connecting wires. A landline telephone having a twisted pair of wires connected to an RJ11 jack is an example of a telephone using a wired telephone connection. Cellular, cordless and PCS radiotelephones are examples telephones using of wireless telephone connection.
Most telephones have acoustic interfaces to permit a user of the telephone to communicate with a person at the remote location. An acoustic interface generally includes either an earpiece transducer or a loudspeaker transducer and a microphone transducer. The earpiece transducer or the loudspeaker transducer converts an electrical signal received from the remote location into an acoustic signal for the user to listen to. The microphone transducer converts an acoustic signal generated by the user's speech into an electrical signal for transmission to the remote location. Typically, the earpiece transducer and the microphone transducer are carried in a housing commonly known as a telephone handset and spaced apart from each other at a predetermined distance along a common axis. To communicate the user holds the telephone handset against the user's head so as to align the earpiece transducer with the user's ear and to align the microphone transducer with the user's mouth. Therefore, the user can communicate using the telephone handset by speaking into the microphone transducer while listening to the earpiece transducer.
Some problems associated with the known acoustic interface include dropping the telephone handset while in use, misplacing the telephone handset while not in use, expending time to retrieve the telephone handset to make or answer a telephone call and a physical discomfort caused by using the telephone handset.
These problems have been addressed in several ways. Some telephones are adapted to use a telephone headset having the earpiece transducer and the microphone, transducer, coupled to a telephone and adapted to be worn on the user's head so as to align the earpiece transducer with the user's ear and to align the microphone transducer with the user's mouth. Although this first solution addresses the problems mentioned hereinabove, this first solution is inappropriate when the user does not want to wear the telephone headset.
Some other telephones are carried on a wrist band and having the earpiece transducer and/or the microphone transducer moved to the palm side of the user's hand to align the earpiece transducer with the user's ear and to align the microphone transducer with the user's mouth when the user's hand is placed against the user's head. Although this second solution addresses the problems mentioned hereinabove, this second solution is inappropriate when the user does not want to move the earpiece transducer and/or the microphone or in cold weather when the user is wearing gloves. Moreover, this second solution is limited solely to telephones carried on the wrist band and are not adaptable to conventional portable telephone handsets or radiotelephone circuitry mounted on a card.
It is also generally known to integrate an earpiece transducer and a microphone transducer within particular garments, such as a hat, eyewear or a vest, wearable by the user. However, this third solution sometimes provides handsfree communication using a loudspeaker transducer and a microphone transducer and does not permit close coupled communication using an earpiece transducer. Further, a person may not always want to need to wear these types of garments.
Accordingly, there is a need for a hand adaptive telephone comprising a glove member adapted to be worn on a person's hand and carrying a user interface mechanism. The user interface mechanism may be, for example, an acoustic interface mechanism including an earpiece transducer and a microphone transducer carried by the glove member at a location on an inside of the person's hand when the glove member is worn on the person's hand.